Senior Firm Supervisor – Financial Advisers, Wealth Management and Pensions

at  Financial Conduct Authority

National £51,200 - £61,000 (depending on experience)
London £56,400 - £65,000 (depending on experience)

Are you interested in joining a team focussed on reducing and preventing serious harm? We have four senior firm supervisor opportunities across three teams:

• Our wealth management team are focussed on harm arising from financial crime (fraud and scams), poor value, high risk and complex products and failure to appropriately support vulnerable consumers all linked to the Consumer Duty. Primary business models the team supervises include discretionary wealth managers, stockbrokers and outsourced service providers
• Our adviser and investment intermediary team are focussed on harm arising from retirement income advice, ongoing advice services and consolidation. Also ensuring the ‘polluter pays’, monitoring and testing higher industry standards under the Consumer Duty, and enabling more consumers to pursue their financial objectives through the Advice Guidance Boundary Review. The team supervises firms of all sizes from sole traders to large advice networks and vertical integrated high street names. There are also niche non-advised services, investment consultancy services to retail consumers/ corporates, and authorised professional firms (e.g. solicitors)
• Our case evaluation team is key to the smooth operating of the Consumer Investments Directorate (covering Wealth Management, Advisers & Intermediaries, Peer to Peer, Crowdfunding, Platforms and SIPP Operators) and has three key functions: triaging/scoring of all incoming cases and intelligence, mitigating the majority of matters across the Directorate and the fixed firm supervision of a large network. The team handle a variety of cases such as non-financial misconduct, fitness and propriety, sale and purchase of client books and prudential matters. The team also manages department MI, repeat offenders identification and supports cross FCA change initiatives

These roles sit within the Advisers, Wealth & Pensions (AWP) Department which sits within the Consumer Investments (CI) Directorate. As a Senior Supervisor you will have the opportunity to help deliver our vision across firms that operate in the sector so that consumers can:

• Invest with confidence and understand the risks they are taking
• Access & identify investments that suit their circumstances and attitude to risk
• Be protected from scams
• Get advice or support to invest, should they want it

What you will be doing

• Developing supervision and mitigation strategies, setting clear expectations to firms, influencing, persuading and where appropriate, using formal powers to change conduct behaviour to deliver better outcomes for consumers in line with the Consumer Duty
• Analysing the business models/strategies of firms, and identifying how conduct risks could cause harm to consumers and/or markets
• Developing constructive working relationships with senior management in firms
• Being involved in cross-department/FCA wide initiatives
• Managing key stakeholder relationships (both internal and external)
• Working at pace to make sound judgements and joining the dots

What will you get from the role?

• Opportunity to support supervision strategies in relation to Consumer Duty and/or Financial Crime, with exposure to a variety of business models and firm types
• Opportunity to work in a complex, high profile, red portfolio and supervising a sector which impacts millions of clients across the UK
• A unique insight into the workings of firms across the sector and have the opportunity to influence firms’ senior management and behaviour
• Exposure to senior stakeholders and a diverse cross divisional FCA approach that includes Prudential, Resolution, Financial Crime and Enforcement action
• Opportunity to influence/input into FCA wide change initiatives – helping to shape the future of supervision

Our competitive flexible benefits scheme gives you the opportunity to create a personalised benefits package, tailored to suit your lifecycle. You can use this allowance to purchase additional benefits such as dental or cycle to work or you have the option top up your base salary by taking this as cash.

Core benefits that you will receive as standard are:

• 25 days holiday per year plus bank holidays
• Private healthcare with Bupa
• A non-contributory Pension of at least 8% of basic salary each month (there are several contribution levels that increase depending on your age – up to 12% a month once you reach age 35)
• Life assurance of eight times your basic salary
• Income protection

We support hybrid working which means you will be able to work from home up to 60% of the time over a month with the remainder of your time in one of our three office locations.
The skills and experience you will have
We are a signatory to the Government’s Disability Confident scheme. This means that we will offer an interview to disabled candidates entering under the scheme, who best meet the minimum criteria for a role.

Minimum

• Experience in financial advice, wealth management or investment intermediary sectors. Alternatively a financial services related role at a regulatory, consultancy or compliance firm
• Clear and concise written communication
• Experience of making timely risk-based decisions with clear analysis and justification and putting an appropriate strategy in place

Essential

• Build effective working relationships to support the delivery of supervisory outcomes, flexing your style to build consensus and influence a range of diverse stakeholders
• Take ownership of problems and drive forward pragmatic action-based solutions
• Effectively manage priorities, which may change at short notice, and be able to adapt to change
• Ability to influence and negotiate while maintaining the integrity of the issues that need to be conveyed
• A sound understanding of the Consumer Investments sector (or willingness to learn): including knowledge of retail investment products and services, and the key risks posed by firms in the sector

About the FCA
The FCA regulates the conduct of 45,000 firms in the UK to ensure our financial markets are honest, fair and competitive. We do this to make sure markets work well for individuals, businesses and the economy as a whole. For more information on what we do, our three-year strategy can be found
here.
The FCA’s Values & Diversity
Our ambition is to cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences and similarities enable us to be a better organisation – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation, and delivers better regulation.
The FCA is committed to achieving greater diversity across all levels of the organisations. Given this, we particularly welcome applications from women, disabled and minority ethnic candidates for our Senior Associate - Regulatory role.
Flexible working
We welcome applications from candidates who are looking for flexible arrangements. Many of our staff work flexibly including working part-time, staggered hours, and job shares. We can’t promise to give you exactly what you want but we won’t judge you for asking.
Multi-location
As part of the FCA’s on-going commitment to develop our national presence, most of our vacancies are now open to working in our Edinburgh, Leeds, or London offices. This means that as part of the application process you will be able to select your preference of which office location you would like to work from.
Useful information
Applications for this role close at 23:59 on 20th November 2024
This role is graded as Senior Associate – Regulatory
What to expect from our interview process
All applications will be reviewed once the advert has closed.
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to complete a case study first. If you are successful at the case study stage, you will be invited for a 60-min competency-based interview.
Got a question?
If you are interested in learning more about the role please contact:
For Internal applicants, please contact Cheryl Cheung at
cheryl.cheung@fca.org.uk
For External applicants, please contact Aaron Ward at
aaron.ward@fca.org.uk
Application support
We want to remove any possible barriers and are committed to providing a wide range of reasonable adjustments so that you can keep the focus on your conversations and be at your best.
If you have an accessibility requirement, disability, or condition that means you might require changes to the recruitment process, please contact your recruiter to discuss this further. Our aim is to make your application as easy and comfortable as possible, and your recruiter will be happy to work with you to make any necessary arrangements where possible.
Please note – Applications must be submitted through our online portal. Applications sent via email will not be accepted

These roles sit within the Advisers, Wealth & Pensions (AWP) Department which sits within the Consumer Investments (CI) Directorate. As a Senior Supervisor you will have the opportunity to help deliver our vision across firms that operate in the sector so that consumers can:

• Invest with confidence and understand the risks they are taking
• Access & identify investments that suit their circumstances and attitude to risk
• Be protected from scams
• Get advice or support to invest, should they want i

What you will be doing

• Developing supervision and mitigation strategies, setting clear expectations to firms, influencing, persuading and where appropriate, using formal powers to change conduct behaviour to deliver better outcomes for consumers in line with the Consumer Duty
• Analysing the business models/strategies of firms, and identifying how conduct risks could cause harm to consumers and/or markets
• Developing constructive working relationships with senior management in firms
• Being involved in cross-department/FCA wide initiatives
• Managing key stakeholder relationships (both internal and external)
• Working at pace to make sound judgements and joining the dot

What will you get from the role?

• Opportunity to support supervision strategies in relation to Consumer Duty and/or Financial Crime, with exposure to a variety of business models and firm types
• Opportunity to work in a complex, high profile, red portfolio and supervising a sector which impacts millions of clients across the UK
• A unique insight into the workings of firms across the sector and have the opportunity to influence firms’ senior management and behaviour
• Exposure to senior stakeholders and a diverse cross divisional FCA approach that includes Prudential, Resolution, Financial Crime and Enforcement action
• Opportunity to influence/input into FCA wide change initiatives – helping to shape the future of supervisio